


The Forest Primeval

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Creepy woods, Drama, Gen, Lost - Freeform, Series 2, Whump, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-27
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-08 17:09:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14110086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: This, Morse is beginning to think as he trips and skids down into a mist-filled hollow half his height, was probably a mistake.





	The Forest Primeval

Darkness is falling. 

Beyond the ancient trees whose gnarled branches reach out to one another across the oil-black canopy, the sky is turning a brief, bright orange as the sun licks at the horizon. Here between the massive trunks, night has already settled in. It blends seamlessly into the mist, curling in about the thick boughs and boles, lying heavy in the hollows that abound. Shadows sleep in the empty space between the trees’ root bulbs, some depressions smooth-sloped and others sharp drops into dark pits filled with mist like a witch’s cauldron. 

The woods are thick with the scent of autumn: wet bark, rotting leaves, damp earth. The ground is slick and uneven underfoot, the carpet of fallen leaves shifting with each step he takes. 

This, Morse is beginning to think as he trips and skids down into a mist-filled hollow half his height, was probably a mistake. 

It wasn’t particularly that it had seemed a good idea at the time. Working with his nose to the grindstone for weeks on the murder of a Lady Matilda’s graduate, he had suddenly uncovered a line of evidence which led to Bagley Wood. There hadn’t been a process of evaluating costs and benefits guiding his actions – he found the evidence, he went. From A to B, math at its simplest. Like bloodhounds, coppers follow their noses.

The first hour of searching was damp and dismal – it had stopped raining just prior to his arrival but heavy drops of rain were still falling from the soaked leaves above and the ground was a thick half-mud, half-leaf slurry. But then twilight began to creep through the trees and Morse realised that to be out alone in the woods without a torch so close to sunset occupied a realm above carelessness. 

Evidence search now temporarily suspended, he struggles to make his way back towards the car park. Bagley Wood isn’t large, but it’s wide enough that he can’t see the light of town through the edges of the trees; with the sun up that hadn’t been a problem, but the night sky gives away no clues to the forest’s seams. 

Morse strikes out in the direction he believes to be correct, walking from one towering tree to another to try to avoid the deep pits that lie strewn about the forest floor. Some are as deep as he is tall, a few perilous ones deeper still. 

He’s been walking for perhaps ten minutes when his foot skids out from under him. He tries to reach out, arms pinwheeling in empty air, and slips downwards. The earth gives way beneath his weight and he falls, landing hard on his ankle and sprawling across the floor of a new pit to strike the far wall head-first. Something crunches under his weight as he slumps, pain blossoming in his head and arm.

Morse lies, stunned, for an amount of time that stretches into the reaching darkness. Cold fronds of mist curl above him, wrapping him in dampness. He tries to pull himself up the well of consciousness but it’s slippery work; he can find only pain to focus on and it’s defuse and nebulous, too much so to grant any hold. His consciousness retreats, trickling away like water through cupped hands. 

Time passes.

  
***

At 5:30 Thursday steps out from his office, coat and hat in hand, only to find Morse’s desk empty. Jakes looks up from his typing, takes the cigarette from between his lips, and inclines his head in a minute shrug.

“Sorry sir. He’s not here. I can drop you.”

Thursday glances over his bagman’s empty place. The desk is neat for Morse, papers stacked and typewriter barren. One of the constable’s thinking days, then, he infers – time Morse spends in his head rather than his files. “Where’s he got to?”

“Dunno. Left a couple of hours ago, said he had to check on something. He didn’t ask me to stand in, so he must’ve thought he’d be back to take you home.” Jakes glances up at the clock, then takes a brief drag on his cigarette. “Probably took a car – we could radio him, sir,” he adds.

Thursday looks back into his office at the mound of paper work waiting for him. He never seems to get through it all. “I’ve a few more chits to sign; don’t bother about it yet. He probably lost track of time.”

  
***

Awareness filters in through a hazy lens, and Morse finds himself lying somewhere cold and wet with an aching head and a hot pain in his left arm. He tries to sit up and the pain in his arm rockets up the agony scale from bearable to white-hot; he cries out: a raw, ugly sound.

The bolt of pain has shot him full of adrenaline, tightening his field of vision and setting his heart racing. It’s too dark to see in the pit; reaching out with a surprisingly steady hand he feels something rough and jagged emerging from the light material of his coat’s sleeve – a tree branch. It’s about the thickness of his thumb, and where it’s speared through his arm he can feet a patch of damp. He moans sickly; his reflexive flinch away from it sends another wave of pain through his arm. 

The instinct to get to his feet is strong, but he fights it down. He calls out instead, wordlessly at first, then managing to force his mouth into submission: “Hello? Help! Help!”

The words bleed away into the darkness without a trace; there is no answer.

  
***

It’s nearly six o’clock before Thursday, fed up with waiting and with just a slight needling of concern, takes up the phone to call through to dispatch.

“I’m looking for DC Morse,” he says. “Did he take out a car?”

“Yes, sir. We’ll give him a ring. Please hold.”

The line goes quiet while on the other end dispatch puts through the call to Morse’s car. Thursday waits, tapping impatiently at the edge of his desk. 

The trouble with Morse is that he never knows when to quit. A bloody-minded determination can serve a copper well, but only when he knows when to temper it with rest and surrender. Morse hasn’t learned the latter two traits yet. He pushes himself too hard, and at the best it’s irritating. At the worst, dangerous. Thursday still remembers fear’s keen knife slicing into him upon receiving the report that Morse had been cut down by the Opera Lunatic, having tried to corner the murderer on his own without a weapon. 

The other end of the line cuts back in with a crackle. “Sorry sir, no answer.”

Thursday frowns, concern blossoming in his chest. “What time did he check out the car?”

“Just before four, sir.”

“Destination?”

There’s a distant sound of papers flipping. “Bagley Wood, sir.”

Thursday looks out his window. It’s pitch black now; darkness would have started falling at five. He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. Bagley Wood isn’t that large, but in the dark it would be perfectly possible to get lost for several hours and come out on the wrong side. This time of year it’s near freezing at night. If Morse _is_ lost and can’t get out, spending the night in the frigid, sodden woods would be a challenge. 

An image of his toast-rack thin bagman, with his light-weight suit and car coat comes to mind. He could hardly be less equipped to spend the night alone and out of doors. 

“Alright. Keep trying him at regular intervals.”

“Yes sir.”

Thursday hangs up and gets to his feet. Bright will have to be informed; Thursday doesn’t have the rank to order the men out in a search. 

Blasting Morse and his stubbornness for solitary investigations in the privacy of his head, Thursday walks down the hall to catch Bright before the Chief Super leaves for the night.

  
***

Morse isn’t sure for how long he calls out; it feels like hours, his throat growing hoarse and rough, but is likely less. His head aches sharply when he tries to lean it back against the muddy wall of the pit, no matter which way he turns it. The damp earth has soaked through the back of his coat and jacket, enveloping him in a miserable cold wetness that’s poured itself into his very bones like liquid nitrogen, leaving him frozen from the inside out.

He’s been conscious long enough to know that his options are few. Doubtless someone has noticed his absence by now, but whether they would consider going to the work of tracking him down is another question entirely. Bright’s been less acerbic this year, but that’s no guarantee he won’t think it a good lesson for Morse to spend the night out in the cold. And if Bright doesn’t order a search… He’s never been good at rubbing along; he can’t imagine many of the men would turn out to look for him of their own volition. 

His fingers have grown too numb to tell whether his arm is still bleeding; he feels sick and lightheaded, but that could easily be the concussion. The necessity of wrenching himself free of the branch that’s pierced through his arm is looming nearer, bringing with it a chilling wave of anxiety and fear. If no one’s coming to look for him, he’ll have to get out on his own – if he can.

Morse has never experienced darkness this complete. He can’t see anything at all, not even the glint of stars through the thick canopy above. It brings with it a sense of vulnerability, a realization that he’s utterly helpless, unable to tell time or direction, unable even to know if his wound is still bleeding. Even if he could somehow pull himself out of this pit, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t pitch into another, or wander in circles until either dawn or unconsciousness comes. 

He shudders and then groans at the white-hot stab of pain that cuts through him, radiating outwards from his stab wound. He’s already so numb he’s not sure he could stand, the heat of his body leeching outwards into the damp wall of the pit. If he’s to have a chance at getting out, it needs to be now. 

Steeling himself, he takes his left shoulder with his right hand. Gritting his teeth and closing his eyes, he yanks himself forward. 

Agony rushes through him like liquid fire, scorching him with its intensity. He hears his scream in his ears, raw and wretched. The world goes white, then black, and he falls forwards into unconsciousness.

  
***

With ten men begrudgingly issued by Bright, including himself and Jakes, they drive out to Bagley Wood. Thursday isn’t looking forward to the shit shower that will fly if Morse turns out not to be there. However when they arrive there’s one car in the car park – a black Jag. It’s empty, condensation dampening the windows.

“Plate matches the one Morse took, sir,” says Jakes grimly, flipping his notebook shut. 

Somehow the confirmation that Morse is in fact here hasn’t heartened him. It could take them hours to find Morse in the wood; longer still if he’s not able to answer. Thursday has no idea what drove his bagman to investigate the wood at the end of a day without notifying anyone or requesting someone to accompany him – given Morse’s nature, the fact that he went alone is not necessarily an indication that he believed his task to be safe. 

They get out, huddling together on the brink of the dark wood. No light pierces through the blackness of the hulking trees; they stand like ancient behemoths, remnants of a time long past when all of England was greenwood. Mist curls out from between the boles, lying thick on the ground; it will make it harder to find traces of Morse. 

“Alright,” begins Thursday, chaffing his hands against the cold. He can see his breath in the dim torchlight. Each man holds a torch and a search cane for uncovering prone bodies; Thursday prays they won’t need the latter. “Standard search pattern; work in pairs and keep in voice contact. We’ll work our way north, then back again once we’ve reached the far side. We don’t know if Morse is injured or just lost, so keep your eyes peeled for any sign of him. He might not be able to answer hails.”

The men nod and split up, heading into the wood at wide intervals. Thursday takes a PC named Peters with him, a young lad with spots and a hulking frame. 

He enters the wood, feeling the foreboding atmosphere of the ancient trees lying heavy on his shoulders. Casting his torch in wide half-circles, he walks deeper into the darkness.

  
***

Morse isn’t sure what wakes him. He comes to feeling very groggy, only aware of cold and pain. He tries to remember where he is and is unable to pull his thoughts together, can’t hook up the pieces of what’s transpired. He tries to drag himself up and collapses, pain lancing through him. He lies with his face against the muddy leaves, head thick with the scent of wet earth and decomposing matter.

The mist is beading in his hair and on his eyelashes, droplets running down his face like tears. Perhaps they are tears; his head is a muddle and he can’t distinguish up from down, can only lie in a heap and listen to the raspy sound of his breathing.

In the distance, he hears something strange. It’s not at all like the rustling leaves and falling water that make up the night-sounds of the forest. It’s something different, loud and piercing.

Voices, he realises after a few minutes. It’s the sound of voices. 

Morse coughs, tasting mud, and turns his face away from the ground. “Help,” he mutters. Then, louder, “Help. _Help! HELP!_ ”

He hears the voices growing closer, the sound of men running. 

“Morse?” calls a voice from above. He turns his head upwards and is blinded by light; he shrinks back, wincing involuntarily, the fingers of his good hand digging furrows in the soft earth. “Jesus Christ, Morse. Stanley, go fetch a rope and radio for an ambulance; bring back whoever else you find.”

“Right Sarge.”

There’s a scrabbling sound and something heavy drops into the pit. “Morse?” says Jakes’ voice from near to, low and uncertain. “What the bloody hell happened to you?” 

“Fell,” replies Morse, tongue thick with cold. The wheels of his mind are starting to turn again, his thoughts beginning to piece themselves together. 

“And no two ways about it. Trust you to walk straight into trouble all on your lonesome.” Jakes squats down beside him, running the torch over him. “What hurts?”

Morse swallows, face drawing tight for a moment. “Left arm… tree root…”

Jakes reaches out and turns him over, rolling him so his left arm is uppermost. With the torch’s beam focused on his arm, Morse can see Jakes’ face; it’s pale and drawn, his eyes narrowed. “Can’t see much with your coat and jacket on; can you take them off?”

Morse shudders and shakes his head; the thought of trying to pull his arm through two heavy layers sends the memory of piercing pain burning through him. 

“Alright, if that’s how it is.” Jakes produces a penknife from his pocket and cuts into the fabric of his coat, then the jacket beneath it, spreading them open. He curses quietly, then stands. Morse watches him take a running jump at the side of the pit; he scrabbles against the wet mud and slides back in again. “Hell,” he says.

Coming back to Morse, he reaches out and undoes Morse’s tie, working it off. This close Morse can smell his aftershave and a lingering trace of cigarettes – sharp, man-made scents after the green smell of the wood. 

“You’ll be fine,” Jakes says, unconvincingly, finally undoing the tie, “Just need to stop this bleeding.” He fights with the tie and Morse’s arm, the motion of it jolting Morse and making him bite his tongue. Morse throws his head back, eyes closed tight and pants against the pain.

After a minute Jakes swears again, loud and angry. He takes a few breaths, passing a hand through his hair, then gives Morse a frank look. “I can’t get it tied properly with your coat and jacket still on, Morse. I need to stop the bleeding.”

Morse stares up at him, trying to make sense of it all – Jakes’ irritation, his soft voice, his words. The pieces don’t seem to fit together to one cohesive whole. He shakes his head.

“Sorry; ‘fraid there’s no choice. Can you sit up?” Jakes puts the torch down on the ground and comes to stand beside Morse. He puts one hand on Morse’s waist, the other under his right arm, and hauls Morse up. The world spins and Morse tips dizzily into the sturdy support of the pit wall. He’s still reeling as Jakes starts to pull off his coat. Then the fabric catches against his arm and he gasps, instinctively pulling away.

“Sorry, sorry,” mutters Jakes, but keeps pulling. He gets the coat off, laying it over Morse’s legs, then starts with the jacket. Morse is shaking now with cold and pain, biting his lip in an effort not to cry out. Jakes’ motions are quick and smooth, moving with efficiency, but the agony of getting his jacket off nearly causes Morse to black out. By the end of it he’s collapsed against the cold wall of earth, eyes closed, gasping in shallow breaths while his head spins. He hardly pays attention to Jakes tying his tie about his upper arm just above the bleeding wound. 

“Morse?” asks Jakes softly when he’s done. “Oi, Morse.” He touches Morse’s good shoulder lightly, with trepidation. 

Morse opens his eyes a sliver, just enough to see the light of the torch. He feels something heavy piled on top of him, it feels like rough wool. 

“Hang in there, Morse. You’ll be alright.”

  
***

PC Stanley catches up with Thursday and Peters as they work their way back through the woods to the car park. “We’ve found him, sir,” he says. There’s a rope slung over his shoulder, his torch pointed down at the leaf mould on the wood’s floor. “I’ve just radioed for an ambulance.”

Thursday’s heart plummets. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Dunno, sir. Sergeant Jakes ordered me to. He fell down in one of the holes between the trees, sir; he wasn’t moving.”

“Where’s this?” demands Thursday. Stanley leads the way, Thursday and Peters following. 

It takes them nearly ten minutes to find the pit containing Morse, and now Jakes. Thursday stops at the edge, feeling the soft soil giving under his feet, and hastily backs up. Jakes looks up at their arrival, face pinched. He’s squatting on the ground beside Morse. “Better not come down, sir. It’ll need a rope to get back up again; the sides are too slick to climb.”

Thursday nods. “Morse?” he asks.

Morse is lying propped up against the side of the pit; he has Jakes’ coat draped over him, and his own laid out over his legs. At Thursday’s call he tilts his head back slowly, eyes slipping open. His face is very pale; Thursday can see dirt and what looks like dried blood on his hands. “Sir?” 

Thursday hardly hears the whisper, just sees Morse’s mouth move. His heart contracts, a dull pain stealing into his chest. The heat seems to go out of him all at once, leaving him with gooseflesh at the sight of his prone bagman. 

“What’s the situation, sergeant?” he asks, falling back into military sharpness, into the cold rational lens that saw him through countless deaths. 

“He must’ve impaled his arm on a root when he fell, sir; he’s lost a fair bit of blood and he won’t wake up properly. I think he might’ve hit his head as well. There’s no blood there.”

“Can he climb up?”

Jakes shakes his head. “No, sir. I don’t think he can stand.” 

Thursday looks back to the two PCs with him. “Stanley, give me that rope, then see if you can’t find anyone else to come back and help. Peters, you stay with me.” He takes the rope as Stanley lopes off into the wood and lowers one end to Jakes. “Get that ‘round him,” he says. Jakes stands and takes up the rope. He makes a loop from the end and passes it under Morse’s legs. 

“If you sit up, can you hold onto it?” he asks Morse, handing the rope to him. Morse takes a deep breath, face tight with pain. 

“Yes,” he says, slowly reaching out with his right hand and pulling the rope in close. Jakes takes off the layers of clothing draped over him and looks up to Thursday. 

“Can you pull him up, sir?”

Thursday passes the end of the rope to the burley Peters and takes his own place in front of him. “On three, constable. One, two, three.” Together they haul, taking up Morse’s weight between them and pulling him up the side of the pit. The rope cuts into the earth but continues to pull, coming out damp and dirty. Thursday’s hand slips once on its now-slick surface but Peters has a good hold, and he quickly regains his grip. 

They pull Morse up to the lip and then, with a monumental effort, heave him over it. Thursday lunges forward and drags him away from the edge as the soft dirt crumbles away, his heart pounding in his chest. 

Up close Morse is clearly weak and wounded, his lips blue and his skin nearly translucent next to the dirty white of his shirt. There’s a tie wrapped around his arm just below the shoulder; below that the cotton of Morse’s shirt is torn and stained red with blood all the way down to the elbow. 

“Go help Sergeant Jakes, Peters,” orders Thursday, stripping out of his own coat and wrapping it around Morse. As he does so he feels Morse’s skin: it’s cold to the touch, his face and hair damp with mist. He needs warming up right away. “Alright, Morse?” he asks softly, kneeling down beside his bagman and raising him up off the ground carefully, holding him in his arms. Morse’s head rolls against Thursday’s shoulder. 

“Sir?” he asks, for the second time, blinking. “Wha’ happened?”

“You took a tumble. We’ll see you taken care of.”

Morse shivers. “Cold,” he says. 

Thursday chaffs his good arm, holding Morse in tight against the warmth of his own larger frame. “I know. We’ll get you somewhere warm in just a tick. Just you hold on.” 

He looks back to the pit to see Jakes dragging himself up over the edge with Peters’ help. In the distance he can hear voices; Stanley returning with more of the men. Just as well – they’ll have to take turns carrying Morse back to the car park.

  
***

When they get back there’s an ambulance waiting, its exhaust billowing up in white clouds in the frosty night. There’s something reassuring about emerging from the darkness to waiting headlamps casting long pools of buttery light over the gravel of the car park; it feels as though they’ve escaped from an indescribable weight.

The ambulance men bundle Morse inside and Thursday scrambles in with them after ordering the rest of his men back to the nick. Jakes stands in the centre of the car park and watches them load Morse in and close the doors, the DC’s coat and jacket in his arms.

Morse is quiet on the ride to the Radcliffe, his eyes closed. There’s mud on his face and blood on his lip; wrapped up under Thursday’s coat and the brown scratchy ambulance blankets he looks small and fragile, like he’s been through the wringer forwards and backwards. Thursday sits silently beside him, his hand resting on the stretcher railing. 

Thursday wonders if this is how Morse looked after Gull got his knife into him, or up in Lincolnshire under the surgeon’s knife – younger than his years and softer than all his sharp edges and rough-rimmed personality. Thursday hadn’t paid Morse the attention he needed on either occasion, had left him to push himself down the road of wrack and ruin, both injuries exacerbated by Morse’s carelessness. 

He won’t make the same mistake this time. 

At the hospital Morse is whisked away into the bowels of Casualty, while Thursday gives a brief summary to a nurse and is then sent to wait in the waiting area, a conglomeration of ancient chairs and old newspapers. He telephones through to Bright to give him an update, then to Win to tell her not to wait up for him, before sitting himself down to wait. 

After half an hour he’s informed that Morse is being taken to surgery to disinfect and stitch up the wound in his arm; Thursday troops upstairs to wait in a second waiting area, this one slightly newer and less battered than that of Casualty but no less comforting. 

Morse is in surgery for two hours before a doctor arrives to tell Thursday that it all went well, that the nick to his brachial artery was repaired and that the wound has been disinfected as well as could be.

“There was a considerable amount of dirt and wooden material in the wound,” he reports, pulling his cap off and looking suddenly more human, but also more fallible. “The likelihood of infection is fairly high. We’ll keep him in hospital for a couple of days on antibiotics and see how he looks.”

Thursday’s glad of it. In hospital Morse, however curmudgeonly, will have no choice but to take it easy. He won’t be able to run roughshod over his injury and his health, won’t be able to twist himself up into the knots he manages when left to himself and end up pitching himself down another devastating decline in condition.

  
***

Asleep, it’s easy to forgive Morse his transgressions. He’s barely gained back the weight he lost in Witney, cheekbones still far too prominent in his thin face, tired eyes shaded lightly in purple in the ward’s harsh overhead lighting. He’s lanky and coltish, yet with a hint of sensitivity to him – he has the face and frame of a poet, not a policeman. There’s no trace of his unforgiving impetuousness, nor yet the bright flame of his intellect. Morse is a mess of intelligence and instinct, and in some ways Thursday has yet to puzzle him out.

The DI sits in an uncomfortable chair at Morse’s bedside, taking advantage of the privilege his warrant card bought him; visiting hours are long since over, and the ward is quiet about him. Most of the patients are sleeping, many doubtless dreaming morphine dreams. Morse himself is hooked up to a cocktail of painkillers, antibiotics and liquids, all aimed at repairing the damage Bagley Wood did him. He has an electric blanket on beneath the thinner woolen ward blankets, the blue tone having faded from his lips and fingernails. 

When he wakes the first time, it’s in a clearly drugged haze. He blinks into consciousness with a quiet snuffle, shifting beneath the many layers draped over him. He reaches up with his good hand to rub the back of it holding the IV feed against his chin; Thursday reaches out and replaces it under the blanket. “None of that, now. You don’t want to go knocking that out.”

Morse peers up at him, frowning. “Where’s this?” he slurs, eyes not properly focused as he turns his head to take in the room.

“You’re in hospital. You took a nasty fall out in Bagley Wood – do you remember?”

“…Bagley Wood?” repeats Morse. He shakes his head fretfully. 

“It’ll come back. You’ll be just fine. Go back to sleep. Go on now.” He uses the quiet, pleasant tone he always had with the children when they were young and ill and he used to sit by them watching them fight to stay awake. Morse’s eyes grow heavy, just as theirs had, and he drops off into sleep. 

Thursday reaches out and straightens his blankets and the IV lines. Satisfied, he gets up to stretch his legs. It’s going to be a long night.

  
***

Morse wakes feeling hot and over-full of water, his head aching and his left arm stiff and uncomfortable; when he tries to stretch it stiffness turns to dull pain. He tries to reach out to it with his right; there’s something heavy on top of him, and something streaming from his hand that pinches at the back of it. Opening his eyes he sees plastic tubes burying themselves into the back of his hand, his skin stretched tight under translucent tape.

Morse scrambles up in the bed, shocked and horrified, making a sound of distress.

“Morse? You’re alright – it’s alright.” A hand grasps his wrist, stopping him from flailing. He turns to see Thursday sitting up beside him from a low slouch looking very rumpled, a night’s growth of beard on his chin and his eyes blinking away sleep. 

Morse follows the line of the tubes to an IV post by his bed, then looks around to see the line of beds on either side of the ward. Hospital, he realises, heartrate climbing down from its terrified peak. 

“What happened?” he asks Thursday, trying to sit up and finding it difficult to arrange the pillows behind him; Thursday lets go of his arm and reaches out to do it for him. 

“What happened,” answers Thursday in a purposefully mild tone, “is that you went off all on your own to Bagley Wood and fell in a bloody great pit, spearing your arm through in the process and catching your head a wallop. Sergeant Jakes found you, after we sent out a search team to comb the wood. You’re just lucky you took the time to fill out the car log properly, else you’d still be lying there.” 

Morse swallows. The words bring back memories of cold dampness, of lying on sodden earth with the taste of mud in his mouth, of the bright burst of pain in his arm. “I remember,” he says, softly. 

“Mr Bright’s pleased you turned up, but less than impressed by your need for rescue – he’ll want a reason for your impromptu trip to the wood. You do have one, don’t you?” 

“Yes. There was … something… it was about Melissa Summers, sir. I… I’ll remember more, I’m sure,” he says, rubbing at his forehead.

“Alright. You don’t need to tell me now – but I will want to know, Morse. As it is you’re to spend the next two days in the hospital, which means you’re off duty for at least a week. No arguments,” he adds swiftly, when Morse begins to protest. “You could have died out there, bled quietly to death in the wood and not been found ‘til days later. I’m not in the mood for baseless reassurances.”

“Yes, sir,” says Morse, trying to keep the petulance out of his tone. 

“If you behave yourself, I’ll bring you some books to read,” allows Thursday, tone softening. 

Morse looks up. “I need my notes – and the case files, if possible.”

“Don’t push it, Morse,” warns Thursday. “You’re here to recuperate, not to do desk work.”

“I might as well do something useful; I can’t just turn off, sir,” he replies. Thursday gives him a long-suffering look. 

“You’ll find the morphine does wonders for that. If you work yourself into a fever it won’t be to anyone’s benefit.”

Morse leans back against the pillows, head canted upwards. There’s a dark twisted stain on the ceiling tile above him, like a tangled skein reaching outwards… His memory plays back to the wood – to the chill embedded in his bones, the damp caressing his face, the unending darkness. The feeling of his thoughts slipping away from him; water dripping on his hair; the taste of blood. Searing agony.

He shudders, unconsciously reaching out for his wounded arm. 

“Morse?”

He gives his head a shake, trying to push away the memories. “It’s nothing.”

“Is it?” asks Thursday, steadily. His eyes are compassionate, empathetic. Morse drops his hand onto his lap, mouth twisted in an uncertain line. 

“Just memories,” he says. “The last remnants of fear.” And then, with a sudden outflow of honesty, “I hoped someone would come after me. But I didn’t know…” He smooths out the blankets over his knee, eyes downcast. 

“That’s why you bring someone else with you. But failing that… I’m your guv’nor, Morse – that means I’ll always come after you.”

Morse looks up and meets Thursday’s gaze, shyness warring with appreciation. “Thank you.”

“You’re alright.” Thursday stands, wincing as his back creaks. “That’s it for me – I need some hot coffee and a soak in the shower. You’ll be alright if I leave, will you?”

Morse nods. “Yes, sir.”

Thursday pauses with his hand on the rail at the foot of Morse’s bed. “Then I’ll see you later. This time at least, I know where you’ll be.”

END


End file.
